Adam Steele 32 The Wrong Man

ADAM STEELE THE WRONG MAN By George G. Gilman Chapter One THE MAN RODE the black gelding out of the coastal strip of giant redwoods and paused briefly before he heeled his mount forward again. To move at the same easy pace across the soft sand of the broad beach toward the gently breaking surf at the edge of the ocean. He kept the horse headed slightly north of due west, so that he was able to gaze at the calm infinity of the Pacific directly in front of him without need to crack his eyes against the full glare of reflected light of the mid-afternoon sun. The lone rider who crossed this driftwood featured stretch of deserted northern California beach was about forty. Perhaps a half inch over five and a half feet tall and built on lean lines—but there was an unmistakable stamp of strength on the way the man was put together. His face was unremarkable, the features regular in an arrangement that gave him a kind of nondescript handsomeness. His eyes were jet black, there was a suggestion of gentleness about his mouthline, and his hair—cut short but allowed to grow somewhat wild in sideburns—was mostly grey. And there were many deep furrows cut into the element burnished flesh of his face. At first, second or even third glance, this is the impression a casual observer would receive of the man who rode across the thirty yard wide, slightly down sloped beach. Just this, plus the obvious fact that he was unshaven for many days. He was dressed for western rough riding in a black Stetson, heavy duty boots without spurs and a sheepskin coat that concealed most of what else he wore—except for a grey kerchief at his throat. All his clothing was old and travel stained. And the gelding also had the look of an animal which had seen better days many weary miles away from this ocean shore. And the horse snorted and quivered in equine relief when he was reined to a halt and his rider swung down from the saddle. This just short of where the blue ocean broke white along a strip of sodden, hard-packed sand. There was more than mere weariness in the way the man dismounted. And he arched his back, flexed his shoulder muscles and sighed his pleasure as he lowered himself gently down on to his haunches. Then became aware that the warmth of the sheepskin coat—so welcome in the deep shade of the giant redwoods—was not necessary out here in the bright glare of the hot sunshine. And while with the forefinger and thumb of his left hand he tried to work some of the tiredness out of his red-rimmed dark eyes, with his right he began to unfasten the coat buttons. He yawned, his mouth gaping open to its widest extent. And this was how it remained during the full second he was able to experience the sensation of the bullet drilling into his flesh. Then he clamped his mouth closed, his teeth crashing together so hard that it pained him. Hurt so much that he was no longer conscious of the bullet in his back. He grimaced and heard the crack of the rifle shot that had blasted the bullet at him. Saw the ocean get suddenly bluer, felt the heat become abruptly far more intense and heard the once peaceful thud of the breaking surf expand to an ear-splitting crash. The bullet in his heart had stopped the organ’s vital pumping function by then. And there was no time to indulge in melancholic regret that his life was to end this way. For as his brain was starved of fresh blood, the world of this man on the very brink of violent death was—for the final part of his last second of life—even more surreal. Its color was entirely white. Its sound was reduced to a rushing noise of variable pitch. Its taste was salt. Its feel was wet. It had no smell. And he died without realizing why all this was so—that the impact of the bullet had pitched him forward from his squat, to sprawl him face down in the breaking waves. Where he was gently pushed and pulled by the action of the ocean at its edge. Overhead, gulls screeched. The gelding backed off a few paces and tossed his head. The back shooter came out of the giant redwoods at the same point the rider had emerged. And advanced slowly along the tracks in the sand left by the horse. He was dressed more suitably for the unshaded heat of the California afternoon—wore just a white cotton shirt without sleeves, buckskin pants that were pale green in color and moccasins. No hat, but then he did have a head of thick, long growing black hair: long enough to almost brush over his shoulders with its ends and thus framed his entire face. The face of a half Indian, half white. In his late forties or early fifties. The face long and lean, like the near six feet tall frame of the half breed. With angular features—the eyes sunken, the nose pointed, the cheeks hollow and the jaw jutted. The shape and set of the features entirely Indian. While the color of his skin and the dark bristles that sprouted on the lower portion of his face revealed that he was not pure bred. He carried a Winchester rifle in two hands angled across the front of his shallowly rising and falling chest, the muzzle aimed at the cloudless sky to his left. For three-fourths of the way from the fringe of the trees to where the corpse was gently moved by the ocean’s tideline, the half breed advanced like an automaton. Then, some twenty or so feet from the dead man, he halted his measured strides. And wrenched his unblinking stare away from the half floating, spread-eagled form in the surf. To glance down at the rifle. His